Topeka ? Kansas Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger, who also serves as the point person for a national organization of insurance commissioners on health reform action in Congress, today said it appears the most significant work on the issue is happening in the Senate Finance Committee.

“It has been a pretty active and fluid dialogue,” Praeger said during a board meeting of the Kansas Health Policy Authority.

Despite a loud and sometimes bitter health care debate, she said, agreement seems to be forming between Democrats and some Republicans on some basic principles.

Those are that everyone should be covered and there should be no exclusion of insurance coverage for pre-existing conditions.

The issue of whether there will be a public option plan is still up in the air, she said.

Bottom line, Praeger said, is that reform is needed.

“I don’t think anybody with a heart or soul can support the position that if you don’t have money you don’t get health care,” she said.

She said the argument that those without insurance can be treated in hospital emergency rooms, doesn’t wash because it forces people to wait until they are more sick before getting treatment. And, she said, it is more expensive than providing earlier care.